Rescued Blind Coyote Mama May Help Save Other Coyotes


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Blinded by a shot above her eyes that she somehow survived, an emaciated coyote wandered for days or perhaps weeks around Southern California’s Santa Ynez Valley before she fell 30 feet into an empty reservoir in February.

Rescuing the coyote was no easy task. After receiving a call the afternoon of Feb. 11 on the Animal Rescue Team hotline, executive director Julia Di Sieno used a ladder to climb down into the reservoir. The coyote was crouched in a crevice.

She had not only been shot, but she was having difficulty breathing – not from the fall, but from ingesting rat poison. As Di Sieno used a catchpole to try to pull her out of the crevice, the terrified coyote went into cardiac arrest.

“She was dying,” Di Sieno told the Los Angeles Times.

Di Sieno’s assistants lowered a gurney, medical kit, blankets and towels into the reservoir. “Stop making noises that could stress this animal more than she already is,” she warned them.

An injection of epinephrine got the coyote’s heart beating again, and she was able to lift her head. Di Sieno and her assistants carried her out of the reservoir and drove her to a local veterinary hospital. The condition of the coyote improved after she was given fluids and vitamins.

coyote2rescuers-with-blind-coyote-mamaPhoto credit: YouTube

Much to the surprise of Animal Rescue Team staff, about a month after she was rescued, the coyote – now named Angel — gave birth to four male pups

“What this animal endured is beyond comprehension,” Di Sieno told the L.A. Times. “When she had puppies, I didn’t know whether to cry in sadness or for joy.” She called Angel “a courageous girl and most exceptional mother.”

When they’re old enough, the pups will be released into the wild, but not with their mom. Although Di Sieno told the L.A. Times it wouldn’t be easy to convince the California Department of Fish and Wildlife not to euthanize Angel, she was successful in doing so.

Angel will live the rest of her life in a wildlife sanctuary, where the rescued coyote may pay it forward by helping save the lives of other coyotes in trouble.

“I want Angel to become a member of the rescue team’s family as an imprintable surrogate mother for young coyotes that come our way,” Di Sieno told the L.A. Times.

Now in her fifties, Di Sieno has been taking care of wildlife ever since her father gave her a raccoon when she was 9 years old.

The nonprofit Animal Rescue Team she co-founded takes care of orphaned, injured and abused wildlife at its facility in Solvang. As the L.A. Times describes the rescue, it “runs on a shoestring budget, volunteer work, prayers and Southern rock rhythms issuing from a small radio on a patio table.”

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Photo credit: YouTube

Learning to Co-Exist With Coyotes

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ccording to the Animal Rescue Team’s Facebook page, in addition to becoming a surrogate mom, Angel may also become a “coyote ambassador” to help raise awareness about these misunderstood creatures.

California really needs one. Because of the drought, as well as new development in areas where they once roamed free, coyotes are increasingly wandering into suburban and urban areas. Where I live in the southwestern Los Angeles suburbs, there have been an unprecedented 50 recorded coyote sightings since January alone.

“In the old days, it was Mother Nature that animals had to deal with,” Di Sieno told the L.A. Times. “Now, it’s us – human beings with their guns, poisons, cars and urban sprawl.”

Coyotes will likely never win an animal popularity contest. They’ve killed small (and sometimes large) pets, and have attacked people. As an ineffective solution for the “coyote problem,” towns like Seal Beach use cruel traps to catch them, and then euthanize them.

But coyotes actually serve a useful purpose.

“Coyotes play an important role in the ecosystem, helping to keep rodent populations under control,” notes the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “They are by nature fearful of humans.”

Instead of killing coyotes, residents need to learn how to safely co-exist with them. This means taking precautions like keeping pets and their food bowls inside at night, and securely closing trash cans. If you see a coyote, making loud noises will usually scare it away.

Hopefully Angel will have the opportunity to enlighten people and change negative attitudes toward these creatures.

“This coyote put up a good fight, and I fought to keep her alive,” Di Sierno told the L.A. Times. “Never underestimate the will to survive.”

To find out more about Angel and how you can help, visit the Animal Rescue Team website.


 


 

COMPLEMENTARY PIECE / ORIGINAL IN LOS ANGELES TIMES on p. 2 below

REFS
 Ms. Julia J. Di Sieno  Executive Director and Co-Founder Animal Rescue Team Inc  875 Carriage Drive  Solvang, California 93463 United States || info@animalrescueteam.net 

 

Mama coyote, blinded by a bullet, is alive thanks to animal rescuers

The call came in on Julia Di Sieno’s wildlife rescue hotline at 1:35 p.m. Feb. 11: “A coyote has fallen into the empty reservoir over at the Santa Ines Mission.”

Minutes later, Di Sieno was standing at the edge of the stone-and-mortar reservoir, looking 30 feet down on a badly injured and emaciated female coyote huddled in a shadowed crevice.

The animal’s labored breathing, gurgling sounds and bleeding posterior suggested it suffered from upper-respiratory problems, giving the appearance of poisoning.

Wearing Kevlar gloves and armed with a steel pole attached to a catch-noose, Di Sieno hurried down a ladder. It took only a few seconds to realize that the coyote was blind in both eyes.

“As I was pulling her out of the crevice with my catch pole, she went into cardiac arrest,” said Di Sieno, executive director of the Animal Rescue Team in Solvang. “She was dying.”

The 55-year-old licensed rescuer looked up at her assistants and asked them to lower a gurney by rope, along with her medical kit, heavy blankets and towels. Also, she told them, “Stop making noises that could stress this animal more than she already is.”

Di Sieno gave the coyote a shot of epinephrine to kick her heart back into rhythm and began administering chest compressions. The coyote responded by lifting her head a few inches off the ground.

Minutes later, the animal was in Di Sieno’s pickup truck and headed to a veterinary hospital, where the animal’s condition was stabilized with intravenous fluids and vitamins.

X-rays and examinations later found that the coyote, now known as Angel, had been shot between the eyes. The wounded animal apparently wandered for many days, even weeks, in the Santa Ynez Valley until she fell into the reservoir.

Vets also discovered one other thing.

On March 23, while recuperating at Di Sieno’s wildlife rehabilitation facility, Angel gave birth to five puppies.

On a recent day, Di Sieno introduced a visitor to the predator she calls “a courageous girl and most exceptional mother.”

A sign on her wire enclosure read: “Blind coyote! Julia only!” Angel was snoozing in a corner after nursing the little balls of dark gray fur that were yipping and yawning in their sleep.

“What this animal endured is beyond comprehension,” Di Sieno whispered. “When she had puppies, I didn’t know whether to cry in sadness or for joy.”

Di Sieno plans to care for the puppies until they are mature enough to be released in the surrounding mountains. She has big plans, however, for Angel, with whom she has developed strong bonds.

“I want Angel to become a member of the rescue team’s family as an imprintable surrogate mother for young coyotes that come our way.”

“But first,” she acknowledged, “I have to persuade the state Department of Fish and Wildlife not to euthanize her — and that won’t be easy.”

In California, possession of a coyote is illegal unless permitted by the state. Di Sieno also must apply for a special permit to keep a coyote on the premises indefinitely.

Asked about Angel, Fish and Wildlife spokesman Andrew Hughan said, “We are working to find a reasonable solution as quickly as possible.

“The department appreciates Julia and the rescue team’s efforts to save this coyote and other wildlife. We’ve worked closely with her over the years and appreciate her passion for rescuing imperiled wildlife.”

To hear Di Sieno tell it, “I’m hard-wired to do this work.”

Di Sieno was 9 and living in Santa Barbara when she got her first wild animal, a raccoon that was a gift from her father. She gazed upon the blob of striped fur and beheld an extraordinarily inquisitive and intelligent creature from another universe of nature, with its own primitive code of ethics.

A torrent of such creatures flows these days into her nonprofit operation, which runs on a shoestring budget, volunteer work, prayers and Southern rock rhythms issuing from a small radio on a patio table.

Generally, animals orphaned, injured or cruelly abused are kept in spider web-like networks of wire cages and pens maintained by a cadre of volunteers. The creatures include coyotes, bobcats, foxes, deer, squirrels, owls, tortoises, turkeys, geese, lizards, snakes, frogs and an occasional mountain lion.

“In the old days, it was Mother Nature that animals had to deal with,” Di Sieno said. “Now, it’s us — human beings with their guns, poisons, cars and urban sprawl.

“A few weeks ago, we found seven animals — foxes, quail, squirrels and an owl — that had been shot and placed in some kind of ritual circle,” she said.

Angel, too, had been cruelly trapped between the two worlds. “But she trusts me now,” Di Sieno said.

Di Sieno’s supporters include Sheri MacVeigh, a veterinarian at Solvang Veterinary Hospital, who said she believes “that coyote would not still be here had not Julia started cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the field and then brought her to us.”

Then there is conservationist Tom O’Key, whose discovery in 2013 of a bobcat trap on his property near the edge of Joshua Tree National Park triggered a grass-roots fury across the state. Two years later, bobcat trapping was outlawed in California, ending a century-old industry.

O’Key came up with the idea of naming the coyote Angel after learning about her ordeal. “People who dedicate their lives to the interests of suffering creatures like this severely wounded female coyote deserve all the credit and support we can heap on them,” he said.

Di Sieno put it another way. “This coyote put up a good fight, and I fought to keep her alive.

“Never underestimate the will to survive.”

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

Twitter: @LouisSahagun

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